Access of evil: It's a beach, not a living room

Exploring Sea Bright's public beach accessStar-Ledger reporter MaryAnn Spoto takes the beach to explore Sea Bright's public beach access, one year after the town agreed to improve it. (Video by Noah K. Murray/The Star-Ledger)

It’s that time of year again, the time of year when people flock to the beach to enjoy the sun, frolic on the sand — and fight over access to the ocean.

Unfortunately, few seem to understand that ocean access is not the same thing as beach access. Let me illustrate, with a quote from one of the great surfers of the 1960s. When asked if he participated in the scenes of California beach life being portrayed on the silver screen, Phil Edwards replied, “The beach is what you cross to get to the ocean.”

As long as you can do that, you’ve got ocean access. Most summer visitors want more. Here’s a partial list of their demands:

Parking. Restrooms. Changing facilities. Trash collection. Lifeguard protection. Even a place to drive their SUVs.

This is the crux of the latest battle over beach access. It is rooted in a 2007 edict from the Corzine administration that required oceanfront towns seeking beach replenishment funds to offer access points every half-mile, along with parking and restroom facilities.

The borough of Avalon sued to overturn the rules and won — with good reason. Avalon already provided access to its entire oceanfront. It had lots of parking and it had 15 public restrooms as well. They just didn’t happen to be located at half-mile intervals.

The Christie administration recently proposed some changes to the rules. There would still be plenty of access under the new rules, but there would be no effort to require that every town along the Shore provide every service every tourist might desire.

And that ticks some people off, particularly the people at the Associated Press. Every year, the AP runs an article about the horrendous beach access problem in the state. And for the past couple of years, the beaches targeted are those in the tiny town of Mantoloking in OceanCounty.

This is a town about which I know quite a bit. Mantoloking has one of the most dog-friendly beaches in the state, and for that reason, it is the scene of many of my evening runs with my dog, Betty. I surf there on occasion as well.

I didn’t recognize the place in a recent AP article on beach access. The writer first decried “class warfare” and then proceeded to engage in it by terming Mantoloking “one of the wealthiest towns in New Jersey,” a place where it is “impractical for anyone but residents to use the beaches, some of which charge hundreds of dollars for a seasonal badge.” The AP has also decried the “lack of an affordable daily badge.”

There’s one little detail that never seems to make those articles. That’s the price of a season badge: $12. You read that right. For a few bucks more than you’d pay to get on the beach for a day in nearby Point PleasantBeach, you can have access to the Mantoloking beaches for the entire summer.

So just why is it that Mantoloking is one of the towns most often cited by beach-access advocates as a major offender? The advocates aren’t content with mere access. They also want lifeguard protection. They want ample parking and plenty of restrooms as well.

One problem: There’s no place to put that stuff. Most of the town is three streets wide and two of those streets are too narrow for parking. As for the third, Tom Byrne has a house on the beach block. Sometimes, I stop and talk politics with the son of the former governor as I’m about to take a run with Betty.

Byrne’s got all summer to survey the scene, and here is what he says about the main complaint from the access advocates, that a two-hour limit on parking keeps people from using the beach.

“If you didn’t have a parking limit, people would drive up in the morning and park for the whole day,” Byrne said. That would mean a handful of beachgoers could hog all of the parking spots.

The access advocates offer an alternative: They want the town to acquire enough land to park the cars of all comers. They want lifeguard service as well. Throw in some nice restrooms like they have in SpringLake. Wonderful — except then you’d have to pay what they pay in SpringLake: $100 for the season.

“The Mantoloking deal is a trade-off between price and service,” Byrne said.